use strict; my $var1 = $ARGV[0]; print $var1."\n"; open(IN, "temp.mine") or die "Error opening temp.mine\n"; while() { my $line = $_; print "input = $line\n"; if($line =~ /$var1/m) { print "found \n"; close(IN) or die "Error closing file\n"; exit 0; } } close(IN) or die "Error closing temp.mine\n"; print "not found \n"; #contents of file temp.mine #a+b